How I learned to stop dating the wrong guys over and over again

You feel emotionally wrecked for months, I remember I cut off my connection from humanity; I worked myself like a dog into the depths of the night and exhausted myself to sleep. Everything was better than the pain I had been through.

After a bad breakup people, toss themselves in a realm of self-imposed harm. In search of a rebound, they end up dating the wrong people all over again, causing further damage, harm and suffering to their already-battered existence. Even though they yearn to feel again, they end up suffering from emotional blockages. The best thing to do at this point is to stop trying and to figure out what went wrong.

You feel emotionally wrecked for months, I remember I cut off my connection from humanity; I worked myself like a dog into the depths of the night and exhausted myself to sleep. Everything was better than the pain I had been through.

What happened everyday? I wouldn’t actually be able to explain it but I do know that life was hard and I was in a constant struggle to keep my head above the water. It hurt to breathe sometimes and my insecurities got the best of me. One day, my life was a fairytale and the next day, I would be on the floor, crying, curled up in the corner of my room too dumbfounded to figure out what went wrong.

It felt like someone had picked me up from the heights of heaven and thrown me into a dark under-city sewage, and I had no way out. I didn’t even feel human anymore. I felt like an animal most of the time, tired of tricks and tired of letting my guard down over and over again. I was manipulated and my own words were twisted against me.

I was forced to believe that I was the weak link in our relationship. While in reality, I was the one trying with all my heart to hold things in place. Boy, was he a beautiful liar; I haven’t seen anyone look so good while lying to my face. I felt ashamed of myself for letting him breach my walls over and over again. With time, I should have transitioned into hating him, into realizing he would never do good to be but instead, I fell weaker, more vulnerable and was becoming easier to be manipulated.

You have no idea what it's like to be with a manipulative liar, you start emotionally bleeding out. You feel like you have been cut over and over again in the same place, but only deeper each time. Your time together throws you in a fit of anxiety. Depression slowly starts to gauge the little pieces of your soul.

The worse part is, they always come back; as soon as you start to heal yourself, as soon as you start to break through, they come back and so do all your insecurities. You feel like an abused child with no control over life. They beg to come back, they play games with you all over again but you have to find courage within yourself to resist.

These coherent men draw you in easily, with their charm and good looks. I don’t know why women try to fix everything. Why we feel sorry about people who don’t feel sorry for themselves. Even though you want to have nothing to do with them, you grasp onto the hope that they might change for good. After all, you gave all you had to a relationship that fell apart like biscuit crumbs. Even though you want to see change, you want nothing to do with them.

Pushing them away is a whole new war. Even while you decline, you wish you would get the answer to every question your heart holds. You feel like punching them hard, running into their arms, while wanting to throw up, all at the same time. You walk away, reliving the nightmare all over again. This time, within minutes. You switch from almost walking back to hating them again. It takes every ounce of veracity you have to restrain your tears.

You feel heavy as if someone just put the world on your shoulders. You get thrown over by guilt and anger, all the wounds you healed through months of effort seem to have been ripped open all over again, but this time, it hurts a bit less, and they heal a bit faster. You grow a little stronger.

I see no point in dating again, when your soul is too weak to carry on, the only thing you would do is hurt the person you date, and somehow pushing yourself further down the dark alley of melancholy. You will feel void, because your mind and soul are not yet ready to invest further emotion in a relationship, just to see it end. All emotions feel alienated at the end of such a relationship.

It’s been years, but I still have trust issues.

I walk with my insecurities every day. Some part of the abuse never leaves your side; you gradually just learn to live with all of it. You push your fears aside, little by little every day, and you finally learn to lift your head up.

Dating was supposed to be about falling in love with the right person and making them your forever after! No one ever told me about all this feud and drama. Was I incapable of sustaining a long-term relationship? When you finally take a look into it, you realize it wasn’t you who was the weak link. You suffered because of the wrong decision you took in the very beginning of the relationship, the decision of letting the wrong person into your life.

I need you all to think about the people you have dated in the past, all those horrible damaging relationships, all those people with their crazy stories. Look at the pattern you have been following like some serial killer on a spree. Isn’t it frightening how these people have caused you so much harm and yet you fail to see through per-relationship haze and end up dating similar people over and over again?

These people were initially charming, but you soon realize that, they too walk with ugly insecurities and a dark past. Yes, they were confident enough to break through and reach my core, but they weren’t the type of people who would want to stick around for long. These men lead me into a lucid state of freedom and I soon realized that was not what I was looking for.

I easily gave in to their coherent attitude and charismatic charms, but I was looking for stability, someone I could count on. I was looking for someone who was like an old friend, distant but still there. They were indecisive and inconsistent. They feared emotionally investing in a relationship.

For them, their freedom mattered more than their partners’ integrity. They would run away from situations that demanded stance and decision-making. They would push you away when they felt like it, and would let you back in when their heart demanded.

They would try to mend broken hearts with promises, but promises weren’t alone to suffice, they need to be acted upon. I was in love and thought that I had no other choice, I had to believe, and I had to push forward, when every ounce of my existence screamed not to.

A PERSON WHO IS INCAPABLE OF PUTTING SOMEONE ELSE BEFORE THEM IS A NARCISSIST, AND SHOULDN’T BE DATING PEOPLE.

Don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to put your partner above yourself every single time.

I perched under the impression that I was incapable of landing men who were emotionally stable enough to row the boat as equals.

I tossed back and forth between oblivion and dynamism, I felt hollowed out and I decided that this was the last time I would set myself in such a state. I finally refused to treat myself wrong.

The right guy for me would be someone I could break through, someone who would let me see his true self. I had broken off with humanity; I decided to let the right people back into my life. The people who supported me in my initial struggle with life, these people had no drama to them. They helped me get back to life to collect myself and put all the pieces back together. I soon started surrounding myself with the right people, ones I could trust with life. These people gave me an idea what the right guy would be like.

I have seen the right guy so many times in my life. I have seen him in my father when he holds the door open for my mother and my sisters. I have seen him in my friend when he makes lunch for his wife, while she tends for the baby. I have seen him in my grandfather, when he is not able to sleep without my grand mother. I have seen true love and real men in so many faces and forms. I have seen what it’s like to be in a forever relationship.

I have learnt that the right man will not have the perfect body, he wouldn’t own a big house and a great car, he wouldn’t have bank balance, yet he will be perfect in every way. He will be the one who would give you a home, he would not be afraid to put a ring on your finger, he wouldn’t be afraid to have babies with you and he will stand with you through thick and thin. Even when things are really messed up, he will stay there with you.

Talk to me

What did you think of the lessons I learned from life? Share your own experiences with me in the comments below!